Abstract
Using genomic DNA as common reference in microarray experiments has recently been tested by different laboratories (2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 20, 24-26). While some reported that experimental results of microarrays using genomic DNA reference conforms nicely to those obtained by cDNA: cDNA co-hybridization method, others acquired poor results. We hypothesize that these conflicting reports could be resolved by biostatistical analyses. To test it, microarray experiments were performed in a ������-proteobacterium Shewanella oneidensis. Pair-wise comparison of three experimental conditions was obtained either by direct cDNA: cDNA co-hybridization, or by indirect calculation through a Shewanella genomic DNA reference. Several major biostatistical techniques were exploited to reduce the amount of inconsistency between both methods and the results were assessed. We discovered that imposing the constraint of minimal number of replicates, logarithmic transformation and random error analyses could significantly improve the data quality. Therefore, it is useful to adopt these biostatistical techniques for microarray data analysis using genomic DNA as reference.